QFD—linking the customer to the product development process as a part of the TQM concept

LKAB is one of the world's leading sup-pliers of advanced iron ore products. Its most important markets are the blast furnace based steelworks of Europe. As a result of customers' demands for ever-better products, LKAB has begun to apply Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to its product development pro-grammes. QFD, originally developed in Japan, is a technique which utilises a series of matrices to translate customers' requirements into technical specifications that the producer can use. So far the methodology has mainly been used in the manufacturing industry, with very few applications in process industry.
When launching its QFD project, LKAB began by making strenuous efforts to acquire credible and relevant customer data. Experience after one year's work has been encouraging; the QFD technique has proved to be an effective instrument for feeding customers' requirements into the product development process. In addition, it serves as a guide to setting priorities for research projects. The technique promises to become an established tool in the cornpany's Total Quality Management programme.     

Bond market access and acquisitions: empirical evidence from the European market

We investigate whether access to bond markets affects acquisition activity of the European firms between 1999 and 2014. Our study provides insight into the effect that the growing European bond market has on corporate investment activity. We find that access to the bond markets, measured by the existence of a credit rating, has a significant effect on the tendency of firms to make acquisitions. The effect is strongest in Continental Europe and during times of high acquisition activity. We further find that consistent with prior U.S. evidence, bond market access has an inverse effect on abnormal returns generated by the acquisitions. That finding suggests that firms with superior access to financing pursue targets of lesser quality.     

The role of services for manufacturing firm exports

Manufacturing firms have been increasingly focusing on services, a trend that is evident in their composition of bought-in input and in-house production. The services intensity of firms may affect their productivity and thereby their competitiveness abroad; services are also instrumental in connecting firms to foreign markets and can help them to differentiate their offerings from those of other firms. However, the relation between services and manufacturing exports has only been partially analysed in the previous literature. This study contributes to the field by discussing the role of services for firms and empirically testing a set of related conjectures. Export intensity is regressed on two services input parameters, applying a fractional model to a rich panel of firms in Sweden in the period 2001–2007. The microeconometric results suggest that, after controlling for covariates and heterogeneity, service inputs affect a firms’ export capabilities: raising the proportion of services in in-house production yields higher export intensity on average. Furthermore, buying-in more services is associated with higher export intensity for firms in some industries. Overall, the study provides new firm-level evidence of the role of services as inputs in manufacturing.     

Creating tourist experiences by interpreting places using digital guides

This article investigates the relationship between technology and narrative in digital guides for tourists in Sweden. The main finding shows that narratives in the guides are based on a naïve view of history. In several instances, content is based on odd stories and speculation. Recent social trends have led to the erosion of grand narratives and the emergence of multiple views of history. New digital guides must address these challenges in order to develop tourism products that are relevant to different market segments.     

The happy versus unhappy service worker in the service encounter:Assessing the impact on customer satisfaction

This paper assesses the impact of the service worker's display of emotions (i.e., one aspect of functional service quality) on customer satisfaction under the conditions of different levels of technical service quality by means of an experimental approach (N=600), in which display of emotions (unhappiness vs. happiness) and technical service quality (poor vs. good) were manipulated. The results indicate that the impact of the service worker's emotional display behavior on customer satisfaction is contingent on the level of technical service quality, in the sense that customer satisfaction is affected only when technical service quality is good rather than poor. Encouraging a positive display (e.g., by a smile policy), which many service firms do, is thus not a panacea for improved customer satisfaction. The moderating effect is explained in terms of service encounter congruency, which influences the mediated process by which emotional displays by service workers come to affect customer satisfaction.     

Germany,the problem of leadership,and institution-building in EMU reform

ABSTRACT

This article examines the extent to which Germany has provided leadership in creating institutions to overcome the euro area crisis. Under which conditions does Germany act as a driver of institutional change, and what are the implications for the Economic and Monetary Union? Germany’s leadership record is mixed: while it took the lead in enhancing austerity, it refrained from fostering burden-sharing. As a result, EMU faces a persistent imbalance between enhanced institutions of supervision and insufficient institutions of financial assistance. Moreover, the article points out that current conditions for the emergence of German leadership in the euro area are unfavourable.     

The impact of regulatory review time on incremental and radical innovation: evidence from the high-risk medical device market

Journal of Regulatory Economics - We theoretically and empirically study the effect of variation in regulatory review time on firms’ choices between radical and incremental innovations. We...     

Do people care about social context? Framing effects in dictator games

Many previous experiments document that behavior in multi-person settings responds to the name of the game and the labeling of strategies. With a few exceptions, these studies cannot tell whether frames affect preferences or beliefs. In three large experiments, we investigate whether social framing effects are also present in Dictator games. Since only one of the subjects makes a decision, the frame can affect behavior merely through preferences. In all the experiments, we find that behavior is insensitive to social framing. We discuss how to reconcile the absence of social framing effects in Dictator games with the presence of social framing effects in Ultimatum games.     

Adoption of enterprise systems and radio frequency identification among service firms

A promising technology for optimizing supply-chain processes is radio frequency identification (RFID). By adding functionality to previous enterprise systems, the aim is to increase transparency of information throughout the supply chain. In this paper, we present a survey of RFID implementation in Swedish service firms. The findings show that although the great majority of firms are actively working with integrated information systems, only a very small fraction have adopted RFID.